Democratic Chatter 12-14-2008

George Wenschhof Bio

Defense Secretary Gates and President Bush visit Iraq - In a secretly planned visit they both visit with Iraq officials and discuss the recently agreed to strategic forces agreement. The NY Times has more here.

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RNC attacks Obama - seems the Republican National Committee decided to attack President-elect Barack Obama and his ties with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. They released a TV ad today entitled "Questions Remain". Politico.com has the video of the Ad here. The RNC is currently undergoing an election of their chair. The bigger question is does this type of advertisement at this time help the Republican Party? Senator John McCain (R-Az.) doesn't think so. Instead, he feels this is a time for everyone to be working together. He also said he did not feel Obama did anything wrong. ThePage.Time.com has more here.

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Blagojevich may resign Monday - Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, appearing on NBC "Meet The Press" said there is a possibility he will step aside tomorrow. Reuters.com has more here.

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Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.(DIll.) also feeling fall out from Blagojevich scandal - the Representative was identified as Senate candidate #5 by the prosecutors and as a result has received a lot of media attention. Yet, he has not been named as a suspect in the scandal by prosecutors. Jackson realizes at this point, even though he has done nothing wrong, it would be difficult to serve as Senator. We had reported he was a front runner for the position. CNN.com has more here.

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Will Minnesota Senate race be decided this week? - The lone remaining undecided race from the November 4 elections may be decided this week when the state elections board begins on Tuesday to rule on 6,655 contested ballots. Democrat Al Franken received some good news Friday when two rulings went his way. One, concerning 133 missing ballots, was decided by choosing to go with the election day count. The other was to go ahead and count an estimated 1500 absentee ballots which had been previously disqualified. Republican Norm Coleman held a slim 192 vote lead after the recount was complete and prior to the rulings on the missing ballots and the absentee ballots. MSNBC.com has more here.

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